Ziyun Kong

Ph.D. Candidate at Purdue University

Office: BRK 1234, West Lafayette, IN 47907

Email: kongz@purdue.edu

About Me

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, advised by Prof. Minghao Qi. My research interests are silicon photonics, Kerr frequency combs and ultrafast optics. My current research project focuses on the design and characterization of silicon photonic optical phased arrays for potential applications in light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems.

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Research Projects

Silicon Photonic Optical Phased Arrays (OPAs)

Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is a crucial component for advanced driver assistant system (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles for its capability to provide ranging and motion detection with high speed and precision. The ranging result from a LiDAR system is 3D point clouds and barely relies on ambient light. Unfortunately, most of the LiDAR systems that are commercially available for applications in autonomous vehicles now features either mechanical beam-steering or microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based steering, which makes them bulky, pricey, and less reliable when implemented on a moving vehicle.Optical phased array (OPA) offers a solution to keep up with the rising need for a compact, reliable LiDAR system. OPA enables chip-scale beam steering with no moving parts, which makes it much more reliable compared to current conventional solutions. We have demonstrated beam-steering with 120 degree aliasing-free FOV based on an optical phased array, which is promising for soild-state, compact LiDARs.

Kerr Comb Generation in High-Q Microresonators

Kerr combs, frequency combs generated by externally pumping high-Q microresonators with a continuous-wave (CW) laser, have seen considerable attention in the last decade. These compact, high repetition rate, and potentially CMOS compatible comb sources are of interest for a wide range of applications, including optical communications, optical arbitrary waveform generation, and spectroscopy . Soliton generation, which occurs in anomalous dispersion microresonators, is an important mechanism for generation of low noise, broadband Kerr combs with smooth spectra. We have also demonstrated phase retrieval of a low power soliton Kerr comb using a linear dual comb interferometry. Coupling from the drop port gives us a direct replica of the intracavity pump field and enables the study of the phase for the pump line.